Propeller and its



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HENRY STANLEY, OF TROY, NEW YORK.

'PROPELLER AND ITS APPLICATION T0 VESSELS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 30,360, dated October 9, 1860.

T o all whom 'it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY STANLEY, of Troy, in the co-unty of Rensselaer and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful improvements in the construction, mode of formation, and application of propellers to canal-boats and other vessels for purposes of navigation; and I do hereby declare and ascertain said invention and its various applications, referring to the accompanying drawing, in which- Figure l is a general view of a canal boat with four propellers attached thereto, two at the bow and two at the stern-Fig. 2, is a stern propeller, detached-Fig 3 is a bow propeller, detached-fig Ll, end view of the apex of the cone of stern propeller Fig. 2,-Fig. 5, end view of the apex of the cone of bow propeller Fig. B-Fig. 6, end view of the base of either.

My invention consists in making a conical hub or cone which should be buoyant, and surrounding it with spiral blades or fins so formed as to describe a cylinder by their rotation, or said fins may extend at their deepest point near the apex of the cone, a little beyond the cylindrical line.

The proportionate length of the cone and the pitch of the blades, should conform to the required speed of the craft.

I prefer to make the conical cores or hubs of plate iron, hollow, and water tight.

The base of the cone is placed next to the vessel, the cross section of which, at that point, should be about equal to the diameter of two of these cones at the base when twin propellers are used, as clearly indicated in Fig. l. Upon the conical surface of this hub a, a number of blades b, are projected in a spiral course as indicated in the several figures. Then the propeller is to be placed at the stern of the boat, I form these fins or blades so as to incline forward of their line of junction with the surface of the cone, and toward its apex, as indicated in the drawing, instead of standing perpendicular to the axis of rotation. This I deem of great importance, especially as the stern propeller is used to gather in the water and project it out from the end of the propeller in a line coincident with the line of the axis of rotation.

The propellers used in the bow of the vessel do not require this inclination in so great a degree, if at all, and the inclination should be reversed for the purpose of centrifugal action, as their office, in addition to drawing forward the vessel, is to part the water and throw it back along the sides of the craft to the stern. This is especially important in canals as it causes the water to flow in upon the vessel and prevent so great a displacement as to ground her at 4any velocity, as is now the case with steam-propelled canal boats.

In propelling boats as now practiced on canals, the progress of the boat through the water tends to raise a wave or swell in front of the bow which increases with the speed of the boat, pushing the water before it until it has attained a suiiicient elevation above the level of the surrounding water to cause it to run back along the banks of the canal to lill the space formed by the receding stern, while at the same time, the propeller at the stern is tending to increase this space by throwing the water away from the stern, and the boat is thus let down, creating serious diiiiculties to propulsion, viz, an inclined plane, up which to force the boat, and a danger of grounding, in addition to the injurious effects upon the canal. By parting the water in front, and forcing it along the sides of the boat, as in my p an, with a power commensurate with the velocity of the boat, it is ioated on waters of nearly a uniform level, and a full supply is always fiowing to the stern.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim therein, and for which I desire Letters Patent, is-

1. The employment of twopropellers, having conical hubs and blades constructed as herein described, at the bow or stern of a vessel, substantially as, and for the purposes set forth.

Q. In combination with the cone formed hub and spiral blades as above set forth, the backward inclination of said blades at the bows and the forward inclination at the stern of those blades as, and for the purposes described.

3. The combination of twin bow and stern propellers constructed as described attached to the same boat for the purposes set forth.

HENRY STANLEY.

Witnesses:

THOMAS WooLoocxs, J. J. GREENOUGH. 

